


I Seek to Coax the Water

by Byacolate



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Established Relationship, Frottage, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 03:17:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10913211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: The temple is a place of devotion.





	I Seek to Coax the Water

**Author's Note:**

> A commission for the talented and wonderful [techmaturgy](http://techmaturgy.tumblr.com/)! It was equal parts research and fun and it's all for you.

“You are deep in thought.”

 

In another life, Shen might have startled from the ancient root beneath his feet. The balance it offered was precarious for a man far less disciplined than he. But in this life and as this man, one simply did not startle - not easily, and certainly not by a man hanging upside-down from one of the branches above. Lee Sin’s braid continued to swing with his drop even after his body became perfectly still. 

  
“Might I recommend meditation?” Lee Sin went on in lieu of a response from Shen. To keep from catlike distraction at the sway of dark hair, Shen affixed his eyes to the jewel at the center of Lee Sin’s forehead. 

 

“You may do what you like, monk.” 

 

A sanguine smile crossed Lee Sin’s face. “I would like to recommend meditation.”

 

Shen didn’t quite laugh, knowing very well how it encouraged his companion, but the notes punctuated in his throat weren’t quite lost to the ambient noise of the jungle. He ignored how Lee Sin perked up, and reached out to sweep his braid aside like a curtain. “You are obstructing my view.”

 

“Am I? My deepest apologies.” Without a hint of warning, Lee Sin dropped from the branch to the root at Shen’s side. From the crouch where he’d landed, Lee Sin stood facing the Shojin temple as Shen did. Though Lee Sin could not see, Shen did wonder what he could feel from this place of devotion. In whichever plane Shen stepped, it seemed to draw warmth and atonement like a moth to a flame, as it had once drawn Lee Sin. Even without his greater senses, it was a glorious thing - neither unique nor exceptional in structure or concept, but for the golden orchids threaded through the eaves, all the colors of life framing stone. The resonance of serenity and its proof at his side tempted Shen’s soul like a cup of his favorite tea cooling on a windowsill; it was close enough to touch, to take for his own, but it was never meant for him.

 

“You are mired in your thoughts now.” Lee Sin’s rough and quiet voice drew him from his musings, where he could admit that perhaps, in some abstract way, he had been mired. Lee Sin’s hair had fallen over one shoulder to another in his leap, draped across his neck like a snake. Mildly, he offered, “We can go inside.”

 

Shen folded his arms across his chest and did not move when Lee Sin swayed against him. Not even a monk’s ornery nature could dislodge the Eye of Twilight from his perch. Undeterred by Shen’s silence, Lee Sin went on, “There are riches within, though I would not advise you to try to steal them.”

 

This did draw laughter from Shen, and Lee Sin pressed more firmly to his side. “What use would I have for worldly treasures.”

 

“Greed and foolishness guide such a path, and thus I could only speculate to a greedy and foolish man.”

 

Lee Sin’s hand was broad and hot, or so Shen assumed for the warmth that soaked through the cloth at the small of his back. “You flatter me, monk.”

 

“You must be mistaken. I was never prone to flattery.” 

 

With the slightest push, Lee Sin sent Shen off of the towering root. 

 

He landed with little fanfare on the moss below, glowering when Lee Sin hopped down beside him. “I am gazing upon you with ire.”

 

Lee Sin searched across his bare chest with a hand before patting over his own heart. “Oh yes, I feel it. Were we within the temple, you might find glowing fondness for me instead.”

 

Despite himself, Shen’s good mood lingered even as an unfamiliar trepidation took root. “I... will decline.”

 

Lee sin nodded without hesitation, but the way his face remained turned toward Shen was penetrating. 

 

“We need not enter,” he allowed, pivoting to face Shen with his entire body. “I can coax fondness from you just as well outside.” 

 

“Are you going to suggest meditation again?” Shen asked as Lee Sin stepped across the mossy earth toward him, bare toes and the bandaged arches of his feet stained with mud. 

 

Shen had no doubt that Lee Sin could act with the ease of a thousand repetitions if he so wished, but he always seemed to enjoy the production of feeling along the bare skin of Shen’s collarbone and up the side of his neck to reach his face. As though he could not find it at first touch, after all this time. 

 

“Or we could explore greed and foolishness together.”

 

Shen’s eyes darted up from Lee Sin’s mouth to the temple looming beyond. “Here?” 

 

“Hmm. The roots are somewhat precarious, but if you like…”

 

Shen found himself, as he often did, pressed against the nearest tree as Lee Sin sought the meager heat beneath Shen’s robes. He divested him of his armor as though it were a trifle; with this, Lee Sin had never feigned clumsiness for levity’s sake. 

 

“Is this not a form of desecration?” Shen panted when Lee Sin cupped one of his thighs and hiked it up around his hip. Lee Sin’s mouth on the meager strip of flesh between Shen’s chest plate and his mask made his blood sing - or perhaps the song was coming from the temple, a tuneless hum of peace to the universe.

 

Though his lips were occupied, Lee Sin laughed. “No, my light. The temple and its grounds are a place of devotion. So to be here like this, with you...” He moved against Shen with poetic fluidity as Shen’s heart beat in double time. "It is fitting."  


 

Shen clawed at his back, hungry for skin as Lee Sin brought him ever-nearer. “There is a maelstrom in your heart,” Lee Sin breathed, hand twisting around the heat of Shen, heart in his mouth to match the ragged scrape of Shen’s breath, “and as it wounds you, so too am I pained.”

 

_ Devotion _ rings in Shen’s ears long after they parted, sticky with heat - long after they traipsed to the nearest spring to wash. The water was murky with silt, which Shen didn’t mind, but in his casual way, Lee Sin mentioned a bath in the temple.

 

The seed of something wild and hopeful pokes through the soil of Shen’s soul and whispers maybe, perhaps, he could do with a bath.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing a high fantasy comic about a wandering bard! [Check it out from the beginning HERE!](https://bardbouquet.tumblr.com/post/179195348759/a-dwarven-heirloom-a-blade-in-the-dark-and-a)
> 
> Title from Lee Sin's quote in The Journal of Justice, vol. 1, issue 18, as provided by [techmaturgy](http://techmaturgy.tumblr.com/): “Many fishermen try to lure the fish. I seek to coax the water.”
> 
> Inquire about fic reque$ts [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> Tumblr: [wardencommando](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).  
> 


End file.
